The Visitor Painting

Susu Pianchupattana was born and raised in Bangkok city, Thailand and came to New York to study painting in the Fall of 2002. After graduating from the New York Studio School, she was granted an O1 artist visa on the merit of her accomplishments and had her first solo show at the Robert Steele Gallery in Chelsea in 2008. The following years saw Susu split her time between Bangkok and the United States; continuing to establish her work while living in NYC, Los Angeles, CA and Nashville, TN. Awards include the Hohenberg Travel Grant (Italy), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Fellowship), Masur Museum of Art’s 35th Annual Juried Competition (Best Painting), VCCA Resident Fellow (Virginia Center for the Creative Arts), Award of Merit at the 18th Da Dun Fine Arts Exhibition of Taichung City (Taiwan). She enjoys a distinguished reputation as a painter among her peers and art connoisseurs and collectors. She has settled in New Jersey and currently lives and works at the Jersey Shore with her husband John Carpenter, a native NJ guitarist and songwriter. John taught her how to drum and now she plays and records with the band “Johnny Nameless”. " My work is essentially about my love for the richness of color. It emphasizes the relationship of figuration through abstract gesture and focuses on the application of paint in a search for fulfillment through the layering of colors and forms. At times I look back and see that it is the unplanned experiences that are most valuable, each moment somehow connected to the next, building a greater story. Moments in time are key to the bonding of one person to another. I paint and draw from observation and invention, adding and subtracting figurative elements and directing the space until the image in mind starts to reveal itself. I'll then remove weight to further sculpt the subject. Through multiple layers of paint, I seek contrast and the subtlety of value in the spaces between."